Knowra National Diet National Diet Japan’s bicameral national legislature consists of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. It enacts laws, approves budgets, and selects the prime minister.
House of Representatives : Japan’s lower house has 465 members elected to terms of up to four years. Its decisions can prevail over the upper house on budgets, treaties, and prime-minister selection.
Constitution of Japan : Japan’s supreme law, promulgated in 1946 and effective from 1947, defining the state’s institutions and rights. Its provisions establish the Diet as the highest organ of state power and define its chambers.
Shigeru Yoshida : A Japanese statesman who served as prime minister during much of the Allied occupation and early postwar period. His governments operated during the Diet’s transition to the postwar constitutional system.
Unicameralism : A legislative system in which a single chamber exercises the legislature’s authority. Japan instead divides national legislative authority between two houses.
House of Councillors : Japan’s upper house has 248 members elected to six-year terms, with half elected every three years. It reviews legislation and cannot be dissolved, but has less power in specified deadlocks.
Imperial Diet : Japan’s prewar legislature, established under the Meiji Constitution and operating from 1890 to 1947. It preceded the present Diet and functioned under a constitution that placed sovereignty in the emperor.
Ichirō Hatoyama : A Japanese politician who served as prime minister from 1954 to 1956 and helped establish the Liberal Democratic Party. His party’s formation reshaped Diet competition and began decades of near-continuous conservative rule.
Bicameralism : A legislative arrangement in which a parliament consists of two chambers. The Diet is Japan’s national example of a bicameral legislature.
Japanese legislative process : The procedures through which bills are introduced, debated, amended, and enacted in Japan. Most bills require approval by both chambers, with defined procedures for resolving disagreement.
Meiji Constitution : Japan’s 1889 constitution, which governed the empire until the postwar constitution took effect. It created the Imperial Diet, whose powers and relationship to the emperor differed from today’s system.
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